Hapkido in New Zealand

Discussion in 'Hapkido' started by Kave, Aug 21, 2012.

  1. Twisting

    Twisting Valued Member

    hi Kave, here's my take on it. The woman had excellent break-falls, didn't show hesitation in the grading. she was great under pressure and I really liked a few of her throws. Her kicking style is not what I'm used to seeing, so I'm not a fan of it, but it's a personal preference issue; I'm not questioning the legitimacy. The chair work was...interesting. She seems to be a focused and excellent student.

    The overall nature of the patterns and the self-defense had more of a TKD flavour to it rather than a HKD, in my subjective opinion. I'm not actually surprised that the GM has a more transparent TKD history; although I already had my opinion before I read the other posts.

    If you compare that to some of the hankido (from the founder who was one of the original kha guys mentioned on the thread), Yoon Sae Kwon or Lee Chang Soo you see a different type of flow in their demonstations compared to the red belts. And yes, while these are masters/grandmasters, the actual choice of and sequence of techniques is what i'm talking about, rather than their high quality skill.
     
  2. Devon

    Devon Valued Member

    For what it's worth, I trained under Master Lee from the late-'70s to mid-'80s, earning my first dan WTF TKD black belt with the (then) New Zealand Tae Kwon Do Federation and also taking some Hapkido lessons. I haven't been involved with either TKD or HKD since about 1987.

    I quite often discussed Korean martial arts history with Master Lee and I remember once asking him about the connections between hapkido, Hwarangdo, Kuk Sool Won etc. He sort of grinned and said that they were all the same thing. His English was always pretty marginal but I got the strong impression that, from his perspective, there had been a long period of experimentation and political confusion in the Korean martial arts scene when he was younger and that a lot of the lineage claims (and even styles) were basically showbiz/politics.

    He had a scrapbook full of mostly black and white photos of himself training soldiers in Korea and (IIRC) Vietnam - enough that I'm pretty sure his commando trainer credentials are legit. I vaguely recall references to the White Tigers, if that means anything to anyone.

    Bearing in mind that this was all a very long time ago, I can attest that Master Lee had serious kicking, takedown/throwing and joint-locking skills and was a good instructor of the old-school type.

    There was some heavy political stuff back in the day - enough to turn me off organized martial arts for life - but most of that happened after I had moved on to other things.
     

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